The sort of thing I notice during an eight hour marathon of the first season of Transformers Prime.

(And yes, I know some of those screenshots are from ‘Nemesis Prime’ and ‘Triangulation.’ I just know those episodes really, really well, okay.)

The dominant lighting color of the ‘bots and ‘cons, especially the color of their optics, provides a general indication of their alignment. An indication only, of course – the character development of the show goes far more in-depth and proves much more complex than a broad, simplistic classification could encompass. But it was a fun exercise.

The Autobots all possess blue optics and fall under the ‘good’ alignment. Straightforward, stereotypical.

Yellow gets a bit more interesting, tending more towards ‘neutral’ or ‘chaotic’. Nemesis Prime falls on the chaotic end of the spectrum. Breakdown encompasses characteristics of both aspects, coming arguably as close to neutral of any of the ‘cons while alive and set up for the transition towards chaos after death.

Most of the Decepticons have red optics and fall under the ‘evil’ alignment. Again, formulaically simple.

Purple…purple goes beyond ‘evil’ and winds up somewhere around ‘sadistic’ or ‘insane’. Airachnid makes no pretenses for her behavior beyond her own twisted pleasure – no larger agenda or higher purpose drives her actions. And Megatron on dark energon possesses little in the way of a connection with reality or reason.

omg If you look at Arcee’s as well she’s got these purple/pink edges to her optics. *questions her sanity e-e*

"Autobots = blue eyes" and "Decepticons = red eyes" has been a longstanding trend since the G1 cartoon. Though there have been exceptions (i.e. - G1 Swindle having purple eyes), it's a nice color coded pattern that I feel adds a nice touch.

Granted, it was mostly only used in the G1, Animated, and Prime cartoons, and to an extent in the Japanese G1 cartoons, since the Beast Era, RiD, and Unicron Trilogy cartoons all went with whatever their toys' eye colors were (usually), which weren't always blue or red.

For the Prime cartoon, here's how I've seen it:

Blue = Autobots

Red = Decepticons

Purple = Dark Energon/Unicron

Yellow = MECH

Though, the following are the exceptions:

Soundwave - his visor covers the entirety of where his face would be if he visibly had one, and the visor is of no specific color since it has a screen built into it.

Breakdown - his eyes are yellow even before MECH gets a hold of him, but since his face is already red (a la his G1 namesake), it was probably just done to better the color balance of his face and to avoid color redundancy. On a side note, Breakdown's WFC design also has yellow eyes.

Airachnid - her eyes are purple, but it was probably done to help enhance her color scheme. And it does look cool on her.

Makeshift - white eyes, but we barely see him in his true form anyway, so it could have just been done with a care, knowing we wouldn't be seeing what he really looks like anyway.

Also, Predaking's eyes look to also be yellow, but the rest of the Predacon toys don't all have yellow eyes. Some have red, Ripclaw has both (yellow in beast mode, red in robot mode), Skystalker looks like his has gray/silver eyes, Dark Steel has dark-colored robot mode eyes, and I'm not even gonna get into the Go! Preds.

So, it remains to be seen what color(s) the eyes of any other Predacons who may appear in the series besides Predaking will be. But, if they all end up with yellow eyes in the cartoon, then "yellow" could instead stand for "main third faction" rather than just "MECH".

"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”-- C.S. Lewis

"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”-- C.S. Lewis

"When there's gold feathers, punch behind you!!"“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”-- C.S. Lewis